Don’t Hate: Your Business Needs Facebook and Twitter

I’ve heard these stories at least a couple dozen times – “I hate Facebook!” … “I don’t understand that Twitter thing.” I know – your business doesn’t need social media. You get your leads from a direct source, your clientele is “old-fashioned” or you simply have a website to “validate” word-of-mouth referral business.

Yet, at the same time, you want to build a website that generates more traffic for your business, and more new visitors who are intrigued by your products and services. Even if your business is successful and has a built-in audience that you can rely on, or your business does not want to grow – there are still several reasons for you to be on social media. Don’t be scared; it’s worth the effort.

1. Driving Traffic – Let’s assume for a second that you do want your business to grow, and you are interested in expanding your audience and qualified leads. People are using social media as a search engine. Google has some serious competition not named Bing or Yahoo. Twitter and Facebook are garnering millions of searches per day, and many of them are not only relevant to your business – but more applicable and likely to drive qualified leads. When your business has a presence on social media, it will show up in searches, like this one…

If you’re not on Twitter, your business will not only be unlikely to be found there, but you will be unlikely to connect with your potential suitors.

2. Social is Turning Toward Search – In case you haven’t noticed, Facebook has invested quite a bit in becoming a search engine themselves. Graph search is now a part of the entire experience on Facebook. When a user has an account, they’re encouraged to search for things that are related to those in their network and to whom they’re connected; see below…

The Facebook twist on search is unique in that it crawls what your network has been up to for results, rather than the entire web.

So reasons 1 and 2 to be on social media are identical to the logic of – “If you don’t have a website, you won’t show up on Google.” But, if I’m preaching to the choir that doesn’t really have much urgency to update their web presence or rank higher on Google, then let me take a different approach.

4. Sheer Volume – Facebook has more than 100 million U.S. users, and nearly 500 million Worldwide.

5. Misconceptions –Twitter’s fastest growing demographic is 55-64 year-olds. For everyone who has ever told me – “my business’ audiences are too old for Twitter,” or “we wouldn’t even know what to say on Twitter,” you’re not dealing with who you think you are. Everyone is on Twitter. Businesses, consumers, old and young. If you’re not there, you’re missing opportunities to connect. If you don’t know what to say, then just listen for a while – and eventually you will.

6. Efficiency and Communications – Social media integration allows your business to pull in information from multiple sources, follow breaking news, update your website, and stay informed to customer feedback regarding your company’s performance. Social media is mobile-friendly, and acts as a free third-party host for rich media. It essentially gives your business free tools that are tailor made for allowing your company to communicate more effectively.

So whether you’re a local restaurant, realty company, e-commerce business, non-profit or something entirely different, social media is a must. It has plenty of purposes – more than just broadcasting a message. Get on board before you miss any more opportunities.

Paul Hickey is the managing director of Cabedge Design, LLC – an Atiba Company – and chief marketing geek for the Atiba Family. He specializes in strategic web design, organic and paid search, brand creation and helping clients and partners accomplish business goals. Paul loves writing and communicating, and helping drive relevant traffic to websites.